I recently turned in a mail-in ballot for a family member. Interestingly, the instructions mentioned that no one other than the voter can fill out the ballot unless the voter has a disability. This brings me back to an old worry I had about a potential area for voter fraud given the increased use of mail-in ballots. But first let me say that what I did was legal, and is called 'ballot harvesting'. Here's one description from FindLaw:
There is one case where some of this happened during a local election.
For Debate
Is Ballot Harvesting a good and secure practice? Maybe it depends on how it's done?
BUT, I am thinking that it is a practice that others can abuse, especially when it comes to someone doing that to people in poor neighborhoods, to the elderly, and to people who don't speak English. For instance, how would an election official know that someone (like the people that go door to door to help register people to vote) other than the voter filled out the ballot for a person? Or if the voter was influenced to make a decision in anyway? Remember, all of this is taking place outside of the polling places, outside of the view of any official unless the voter knows to report it."Ballot harvesting" is collecting completed absentee ballots from voters and delivering them to polling places or election offices. These efforts often focus on helping elderly voters or people who live in remote areas ensure their ballot gets in on time.
There is one case where some of this happened during a local election.
- The Dallas ExpressA southeast Texas woman pleaded guilty to more than two dozen felony counts of voter fraud last week, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton revealed on Friday.
Monica Mendez of Port Lavaca, Texas, pled guilty to 26 felony counts of election fraud: “three counts of illegal voting, eight counts of election fraud, seven counts of assisting a voter to submit a ballot by mail, and eight counts of unlawful possession of a mail ballot,” according to Paxton’s press release.
The charges against Mendez stem from a vote-harvesting operation she orchestrated on behalf of a subsidized housing corporation to sway the outcome of a 2018 utility board election in Victoria County.
Her actions included “knowingly fraudulently filling out the ballots” for three voters and also “knowingly failing to sign oaths” revealing that she had assisted seven others.
For Debate
Is Ballot Harvesting a good and secure practice? Maybe it depends on how it's done?